


the pale ground beneath your feet

by Caracalliope



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Ectobiological Incest, Forgiveness, Friendship/Love, Gags, Gardening, Gentleness, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Resurrection, Multi, Pale Polyamory, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Past Child Abuse, Past Drug Addiction, Past Food Insecurity, Past Mind Control, Recovery, pale D/s, self deprecation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-29
Updated: 2018-07-29
Packaged: 2019-06-09 02:02:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15256962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caracalliope/pseuds/Caracalliope
Summary: On Earth C, Roxy returns to her roots.





	the pale ground beneath your feet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pendaly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pendaly/gifts).



\-- toppyGnostalgic [TG]  began pestering carcinoGeneticist [CG]  at 04:13 --

TG: hey karkitty  
TG: ive got a question  
CG: SHOOT.  
TG: what am i really good at?  
CG: REGICIDE? QUADRANTS? LOTS OF IMPORTANT THINGS. WANT ME TO MAKE A SPREADSHEET?  
TG: oh yeah i am ninjatits at quadrants  
TG: and human-style dating and most aspects of cherub-style dating  
CG: AND CLOWN-STYLE DATING.  
TG: believe it or not, that ones got a huge overlap with cherub style  
TG: okay... what else?  
CG: HACKING, CATS, AND SHOOTING THINGS, BOTH REAL AND FICTIONAL.  
TG: yep! i’ll shoot a bird from the skies and a drone from the woods  
TG: go on  
CG: THERE’S THIS WAGON AND I HEAR THAT IT’S A BIG DEAL YOU’RE ON IT?  
TG: lets say thats something im adequate at  
TG: but  
TG: okay  
TG: so if im that much of a goddamn big fucking deal  
TG: why do i feel like such a failure???????  
TG: like all i want to do is hide away from everybody  
TG: i had a fight with janey today  
TG: not a real big one  
TG: i just said something dumb and then i said sorry  
TG: but i kind of wanted to cast myself into the void  
TG: spinning into a black hole at the speed of the absence of light  
CG: OH, I KNOW THAT FEELING.  
TG: right??  
TG: and if i am so good at people  
TG: and i am  
TG: then why do i feel so useless and clumsy, like jake  
TG: …  
CG: …  
TG: like jake *feels*  
TG: i dont think hes useless and clumsy  
TG: hes the one that thinks so  
TG: stop it with the amused eyebrows karkat  
CG: YOU CAN’T SEE MY EYEBROWS.  
TG: i can see them in my minds eye  
TG: do you want to move this conversation to your star-crossed hatemance with jake english  
CG: PLEASE DON’T. YOU WERE SAYING?  
TG: i was demonstrating exactly what i was saying. i keep saying dumbass things to the ppl i love. and about them. and then i just want to scream.  
CG: HM.  
CG: HAVE YOU CONSIDERED SCREAMING?  
TG: hahaha  
CG: I’M SERIOUS. JUST DE-VOID YOURSELF A CUSHION AND YOU’RE ALL SET. OR MAYBE YOU PREFER THE SCREAM QUEEN OF THE HILL METHOD, I DON’T WANT TO PRESUME. I LIKE PILLOWS, THOUGH. HEY, YOU COULD FLOAT UP AND BECOME THE SCREAM QUEEN OF THE UPPER THERMOSPHERE? THE CLOUDS CAN BE YOUR CUSHION.  
TG: idk  
TG: lets say thats plan b  
TG: the b is for egbert because i think thats basically how he dealt with shit... and it worked! but still - idk  
CG: OKAY. SO WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO?  
TG: idk!!  
TG: something im great at  
TG: thats got nothing to do with being a friendleader  
CG: A SHOOTING… RINK? A LABYRINTH OF ROBOTS? LIKE A FIRST-PERSON SHOOTER BUT IN PERSON?  
CG: ON ICE.  
CG: STOP IT WITH THE DIMPLES, I WAS A GAMER BOY ONCE. YOU CAN’T BLAME ME FOR ABANDONING MY PASSIONS WHEN THE APOCALYPSE HAPPENED. YOU COULD BLAME ME FOR THE APOCALYPSE BUT NOT FOR THE WAY MY INTERESTS DEVELOPED IN THE AFTERMATH. ANYWAY, YOU WOULDN’T BLAME ME FOR THE APOCALYPSE.  
TG: you cant see my dimples  
TG: anywaaays thats adorable but  
TG: without discounting the robot ice rink labyrinth concept entirely  
TG: i want something less… death-y  
TG: more useful  
CG: OH.  
CG: LISTEN, DO YOU WANT TO COME OVER TO THE BABY FACTORY? I KNOW ROSE WOULD LOVE TO SEE YOU.  
TG: NO. no babies, no roses, nothing i can fuck up rn  
CG: SO YOU WANT TO DO SOMETHING USEFUL BUT NO-STAKES, AND IT NEEDS TO BE SOMETHING YOU KNOW YOU’RE GOOD AT?  
TG: yea  
TG: lmao you know what?  
TG: theres actually smthng that qualifies  
TG: its kinda dumb tho  
TG: have i ever told you about my neighbors?

* * *

Roxy’s new pumpkin patch is a lil’ embarrassing, compared to Jade’s dogly garden of delights. Jade gave her spliced plants to grow, which is really the only reason anything’s growing here at all. Roxy is the supreme lord of animal genetics, but her only experience with plants before this garden was base thievery and pumpkin distribution.

Turns out, she sucks at gardening. But that’s fine, because Karkat sucks more at it. He has the opposite of a green thumb. A red thumb, maybe? The point is, he keeps tripping over the pumpkins, and glaring at them to make them grow. Jade says Karkat doesn’t have the patience for gardening. Roxy thinks that’s probably right, and she thinks she’s beginning to love him for it. She never had enough patience either. It turns out Dave is reasonably good at plants, or maybe he just likes digging. He even put aside his god pajamas, going for short sleeves. Roxy's pretty sure he stole Rose's sun hat, though it might have been a present. You never know with the two of them.

Dave is also their delivery god, taking the pumpkins back in time to the Mayor. Gamzee goes with him sometimes, and Roxy doesn't want to rock the miracle boat by asking too many questions about it. Maybe Gamzee likes being the muscle? Or he's falling for the magic of the Mayor. Gamzee stays out of the pumpkin patch though, for now.

She finds her two gardeners curled up under a cherry/apricot tree. Dave is snuggled up on Karkat's lap, the orange sun hat covering his face. There are two kinds of pits on the ground beside Karkat, and of course he arranged them into little grids.

Roxy floats down next to them, and Karkat offers a hug without looking up from his book. She thinks it’s probably an ingrained reaction, born from dating Dave. And yeah, he looks up a second later, just a little flustered.

Roxy kisses the tip of his nose. Dave gets a motherly smooch on the forehead, the kind that always flusters him. She never thought she’d grow up to become a diamond seductress, but she's good at it, dammit.

Karkat’s hugs are solid and cool, and he feeds her a nectarine without asking.

"So…" Her hand finds Dave's hair, tangles up in it. "So I was thinking. Wait, do you guys want to jam right now?" Apparently, the troll polite thing to do is ask.

" _Always_ ," Karkat says. "What’s on your mind?" His bookmark is a Dave Strider production, the jpeg ass jutting out sharply between the pages, defying dimensions. Dave observes her, upside-down, adorable.

"Okay," Roxy says, and if she sounds uncertain, it’s just because of all this gardening. "Tell me again that this isn’t a waste of time?"

"First", Karkat says promptly, "you can’t waste something if you have infinite reserves of it. For example, Gamzee’s clown bullshit flows freely and graciously from his lips because he will never run out."

Roxy grins. "What a nice thought."

"I guess nice is one of the things you can call it," Karkat allows. "Secondly, are you kidding? Feeding people is a good thing to do. You know the Mayor would tell us if the food was going to waste."

"But I'm a god. I could do more... bigger good things. Than just free vegetables."

"Like what?" Karkat asks.

Here's the thing. Roxy never used to feel stripped of ideas before. But now that she can pluck anything out of the void, ideas keep slipping through her fingers. She shrugs.

Karkat pokes a finger in her direction. "Exactly. Until you come up with something, or decide you've saved the world enough times, why not keep doing this."

"I think this is fine," Dave says, and he looks like he wants to say something else. Roxy thinks maybe he used to go hungry as a kid... like her, like Dirk. Like Gamzee. But Dave doesn't go on, just stuffs a handful of cherries in his mouth, like some kind of alibi. Roxy floats up to get him a new handful.

* * *

\-- turntechGodhead [TG]  began pestering tiredCalamity [TC]  at 17:43 --

TG: hey bro  
TG: do trolls have snoopy  
TC: ArE yOu SpEaKiNg Of ThE dOgG?  
TG: omg maybe  
TG: snoop dogg? or the smug beagle, one g  
TC: I kNoW oF nO mIrThLeSs BeAgGle, bRo. TrOlL sNoOp DoGg WaS a HeReTiC oF mY cHuRcH, hIs FaNs AlL cOnDeMneD tO sUfFeR hIs FaTe.  
TC: i LiKeD hIm As A pUpa.  
TG: oh shit  
TG: what did the snoop do  
TG: did he deny the great rollercoaster ride in the sky  
TC: uP aNd RaN oFf WiTh An OliVe KiD fRoM sOmE sEcT, tHe NiGhT bEfOrE aScEnSiOn.  
TC: yOu CoUld AsK nEpEtA, jUsT  
TC: dOn'T mEnTiOn Me.  
TG: i never mention you to nepeta, its fine  
TG: so what happened with the snoop? what fate would his followers suffer?  
TC: He GoT cOnSuMeD bY a CaTbEaSt.  
TG: rest in pieces in the circle of life  
TG: why would nepeta know that? i dont think all olives know each other  
TC: ShE hAd An EduCaTiOn AlL uP iN hEr, On FaItHs OlD aNd FaDeD.  
TC: i ThInK sHe ThOuGhT iT fUnNy.  
TG: huh  
TG: did you like  
TG: her  
TG: i mean  
TG: talking to her  
tiredCalamity has gone idle.  
TG: sorry  
TG: this isnt an interrogation  
TG: its market research on jokes about the grand pumpkin  
TG: which is the kind of pumpkin that karkat is growing these days  
TC: yEaH, i LiKeD hEr.  
TC: I dOn’T kNoW wHy KaRkAt  
TG: what  
TC: NoThInG. liKe RoX sAiD, wHaT mOtHeRfUcKiNg UsE iS iT tO gO lOoKiNg GiFt MiRaCleS iN tHe TeEtH.  
TG: why karkat forgave you?  
TC: YeAh.  
TG: i’m still a junior karkatologist but i think he felt mad pity for you a long time before he forgave you  
TG: you were locked in a fridge, fondling dead faces, and karkat was hurting  
TG: and then when janey brought them all back to life  
TG: i guess at first it was easier to forgive it all because it made him stop hurting  
TG: and then you and roxy had your starcrossed diamond romance  
TG: and he got curious about the new you  
TG: lucid  
TG: off the pie  
TG: with diamonds  
TG: and like mutually jealous of you too but in a mature karkat way  
TG: i dont know how well you know mature karkat yet, but hes great  
TG: and he wanted to get to know mature gamzee - certified puppet-free - and to meddle in your quadrants and i guess thats all it takes sometimes  
TG: he just decides youre worth it and it doesnt matter if you deserve it  
TG: youre right that its a gift, and its better for him to give out gifts than rewards, you know? hes not the leader anymore  
TG: okay that was a rhetorical question but i need some crowd participation to keep me going  
TG: can i get a motherfucking yes up in here  
TG: gamzee?  
TG: are you okay, bro?

* * *

Dave has got powers now, but obviously he's not going to go back in time just to undo an uncomfortable conversation. He's go no intention of splintering the universe, not when it's going so well, and anyway who is he to mess with Gamzee's brain like that? Just because he upset Gamzee doesn't mean he fucked anything up, not  _really_. Gamzee's got better control than that.

So Dave discards the timetravel option almost immediately. But he's got another power at his disposal. He can call his mom to take care of shit for him. Because Roxy is in charge of Gamzee, right, not even in a kinky way, except when it is in a kinky way. Also because Roxy likes solving problems. She’s totally like Karkat that way.

She tells him that she's on it, and Dave kills two hours hanging out in John's kitchen. John's not having the best day either, but he's totally into helping Dave make an apology meal. They talk about John's stupid face and Dave's awesome music. Dave gets an Egbertian hug at the end, and that keeps him warm all the way to Roxy's house.

Here's the thing: Dave doesn't _have_ to walk on grubshells around Gamzee. Right now, he didn't do anything that really warrants an apology. But he likes being generous. A magnanimous altruist is him. Or maybe Gamzee just brings _something_ out in him. Dave had first claim to Roxy and a stronger claim to Karkat. If he wanted to, he could fuck things up for Gamzee, and Gamzee seems to expect it sometimes. So Dave's going to do these small things, like Karkat taught him, to show he's paying attention, and even to show he didn't mean to get all up in Gamzee's business. 

He's going to humble himself so Gamzee doesn't have to. It's a weird thought, but he walks in to find Gamzee kneeling by Roxy’s feet, so once again Dave’s weird thoughts are contextually justified.

Gamzee looks peaceful down there, and Roxy’s usual chill looks warmer and sharper all at once. Maybe Dave’s also prone to the mutual jealousy thing, or is it just anticipation?

“Y’all started a party without me?” He says, holding the basket of food on his arm like he’s Turntech Riding Hood.

Roxy waggles her eyebrows, a hardwired Lalonde response. (Or is it just a Rose thing to do, for all Roses across all universes? Dave thinks about Roxy sitting on the floor with her million cats, watching her mom’s interviews. Copying the gestures, practicing them in the mirror. He knows Dirk used to do it. He’ll ask Roxy later.)

Gamzee doesn’t actually look up at him, he’s just resting his forehead on Roxy’s knee. Dave sits beside her, reaches and hesitates. Roxy winks, bright and cheesy, and Dave decides it’s permission.

Gamzee’s hair is less coarse than Karkat’s. It’s like touching seaweed. He pulls, just a little, and Gamzee follows his direction.

“You okay?” Dave asks. “If not, I’ll have to feed you all these tiny sandwiches to atone.” Good job, god of time, perfect timing on that atonement joke, when Gamzee's probably all wired and uncertain and maybe even guilty -

But Gamzee does grin at it, and then opens his mouth. A polite invitation that looks just like a bear trap.

Dave feeds him a minuscule egg salad sandwich, one of John's creations. He freezes a little when Roxy rests her fingers on the back of his neck. He's not sure when he's going to get used to that. Gamzee grins at him for it. In retaliation, Dave feeds him another sandwich, but doesn't pull his fingers away. It's a show of trust and of deliberate bossiness, and he loves watching Gamzee go still and wait to see what Dave's going to do next.

* * *

Gamzee has a fear all up inside him, of waking up to an empty hive and looking down upon an empty garden. He has seen it in his dreams, less vivid on this planet, but still inevitable. His dream self's always the same: bitter and unsurprised for all as he lost. Gamzee never met duplicates when he walked between dream bubbles, and it's a fucking relief. He thinks he would have hated them, in a heavy and unromantic way.

Today Roxy’s prepared a gag for him, to take or to leave as he chooses. She’s a wizard at roleplays, but she won't have him to serve her completely. She won’t take his voice away, nor make him go still when he’d rather pace. On most days, this miracle's a good one.

The gag looks like a clown nose, an object both holy and simple. It will muzzle him and keep him still today. But tomorrow, when Karkat comes over, Gamzee’s going to do that of his own will. He can show Karkat that he can be silenced and clear-eyed, under nobody’s direction than his own.

* * *

Roxy’s great at the hostess thing, because she lets Karkat bring all the supplies. On one level, Karkat knows he’s being indulged. On another level, who the fuck cares? Roxy appreciates his cooking, his taste in movies. It’s a relief to organize shit when it means less than nothing. It means the absence of nothing, it's just a thing filling their time. Karkat’s learning that he likes being good at things even when they don’t matter, or maybe especially then.

In Roxy’s kitchen, he takes a moment to press Dave against the fridge and kiss him breathless. Then he sets Dave to work carving pumpkins. On old Earth, the carvings were a joke rather than a deadly serious precaution against raiders, but Karkat can honor his own heritage, dammit.

“It’s not even the season for jack-o-laterns,” Dave points out. Ha! Alternian pumpkins never got destroyed by any force as weak as seasons. But to be fair, even those resilient plants died at the altar of Karkat's horticultural incompetence. As a kid, a portion of his logistics funds always got allotted to the guardian gourds.

“Hey Gamzee,” Karkat yells, after some deliberation. “Remember pumpkin sellers?”

“Who’s that, a band?” Dave guesses.

“It was a highly valued profession,” Karkat says, just as Gamzee comes into the kitchen.

“Nah, a holy calling it was,” says Gamzee, and his grin at Dave steals Karkat’s breath away. “Like Roxy’s calling, as is still in progress.”

Roxy floats in, levitating right over Gamzee's head. Why did she have to choose such a cramped mealblock? Right, because she got the house before she started thinking things through. It was becoming a nice hive, though. She's started plucking whole rooms out of the void.

"Ooh, are we expecting raiders?" Roxy asks, delighted. "Are they headless ones?"

Karkat doesn't always remember that her Earth's past was marred by the empress. He smiles at her and it looks like Dave was right about the smiles: Roxy grins back, beautiful, immediate, and then she floats on over and settles by his feet.

"Nobody's raiding anything," Dave says. Karkat wonders if Dave formulated and discarded a joke about liquor cabinets. "Because if anything got raided, it'd mess up Karkat's plan for the palest pal party this side of Consort Kingdom."

"Shit, bro," Gamzee says, soft, "no raider would ever risk that."

So he's getting indulged and teased at the same time. Karkat needs to protest this, and he will, just as soon as he stops feeling so damn pleased about Gamzee looking him in the eye. Gamzee's still careful, almost courtly with him. Karkat doesn't mind - there are hand-kisses he _really_ doesn't mind - but this is better.

Roxy presses a kiss to his knee, and he blinks down at her. "Thanks for carving out guards for my home, babe," she says. "Ready to party?"

Everything's almost like Karkat's planned it out. He'll fix the details as the night progresses. He nods, and knows that he's smile's reflected on every face in the kitchen, even the fucking pumpkins.

**Author's Note:**

> Dear pendaly, I hope this is what you were looking for! ♥
> 
> The title is from _Start Close In_ by David Whyte, which is a poem that - for some reason - keeps getting quoted on nature photography-themed inspirational posters with a corporate feel to them. I feel that Karkat would totally love that aesthetic.


End file.
